andrewhj.bsky.social
Coach, Lawyer, Business Owner, MBA, husband, father, citizen of the world, migrant, Chair of Heath & Hampstead Society Town Sub-Committee
1,021 posts
483 followers
1,131 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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Going to re-up self indulgently this personal take on White British (and, more importantly, when’s Bukayo Saka fit again?) bsky.app/profile/andr...
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Interesting. They’re angry. It’s comforting for them. Familiar. More immigration, more anger. Good. Also, the people they hate the most? Those wishy-washy liberal, ‘unpatriotic’, middle class Brits who were carelessly well-off but felt most unhappy about Brexit. Result!
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The xenophobia is stronger in them?
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Who’s the producer/editor for that programme?
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So, a couple or three world cups hence…
But, if every other country is struggling at the same time…
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Okay, then, I think we’re all missing London 2012…
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Football just happens to be the game that people with less money but a lot of focus play?
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Perhaps it wasn’t anything to do with the sport and the rise of Reform UK is just part of the same story. Brexit and Covid and Ukraine have only exacerbated the aftermath of the GFC:
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There’s a pinned thread of @emperorsnewc.bsky.social on the other site that lists all the UK’s achievements and exceptions as an EU member. He only had to do that because they were not talked about or recognised. (BTW: football, 1.11.2001, Munich and Italia 90; Eurovision, Katrina and the Waves.)
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I’d like to thank Bonnie Greer (not on here?), @sathnam.bsky.social @adamrutherford.bsky.social @willdalrymple.bsky.social @anitaanand.bsky.social and Adam Lebor (not on here) for their inspiration (not copying in original tweet in case it gets too much attention).
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The foreign interference via social media that we read about in other countries’ politics is likely to occur in the UK also. Quite a lot of work was done in identifying bots around Brexit. If Brexit and its “culture” is advantageous to a foreign power, it would be sensible for it to maintain it.
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What “increase in sovereignty”?
Brexit was a surrender of influence and control over things that affect the UK, aka a surrender of sovereignty, in exchange for what? Glorious, xenophobic isolationism.
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Are the pollsters asking questions in order to be able to demonstrate the contradictions and conflicts in human desires or in order to help people clarify their priorities?
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The problem is that there's almost nothing about UK politics that is structurally likely to produce good leaders.
When the production line keeps rolling off duds, we should ask what's wrong with the machine, rather than hoping someone will sprinkle Ted with stardust & give him a secret magic word.
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Especially, considering this:
bsky.app/profile/leed...
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youtu.be/y2EYjCGd0ss?...
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Anyway, I dreamed up a utopian alternative based on the UK’s damaging experience but equally applicable elsewhere for anyone willing to skim through the 24 pages: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/edvlv...
3/3
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In. A representative democracy, we should be choosing people we trust to make decisions on our behalf. Instead, we are prey to the marketing of people we don’t know who will promote partisan policies of which we are not fully aware. 2/
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There may well be arguments for changing the system of governance too but my point is that the identity of the people we are asked to choose between (already preselected by unrepresentative minorities) and the basis for making that choice are deeply unsatisfactory. 1/
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Wasn’t ‘Orange Shitgibbon’ coined by @brianmoore666.bsky.social ?
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Enjoy! It’s fun.
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Have you read @brianklaas.bsky.social ‘s Fluke, especially the bit about being an absolute determinist? Are you one? Were you always going to write that post, from before the first particle of recorded time? And I, this? And are we each fated to imagine we have free will?
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This is why I think party politics as the main vehicle of government doesn’t serve us well in replicating democracy.
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No. All they can do is try to position themselves on the basis of who it is now and who they think it’s likely to be, all the time thinking whom they want to be the opponent and what they can do or say or announce to influence that?
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Perhaps people are just making explicit what is implicit in a party political electoral system, ie marketing yourself as very good and everyone else (but especially your most likely main opponent) as very bad?
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It’s the use of the word “real” in his handle; it’s as if, deep down, he knows his own inauthenticity. It’s all an act. All front. All, as @churchcat.bsky.social might say, all fur coat and no knickers.
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Yes. Self-indulgently, and only if you really have the time, here’s my 24-page, skimmable attempt at a utopian alternative (from p13; the rest is the background to getting there): www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/edvlv...
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Yes, but I think most sense that, even though PR might promote a more cooperative type of politician, they know the candidates will still be pre-selected by unrepresentative groups of party members and the politicians will still invest most of their time in trying to get one over other parties.
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bsky.app/profile/rent...
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Is it the old campaign in poetry but govern in prose? Are we all just impatient for more than incremental change?
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Indeed. They believe they don’t have the bandwidth. Perhaps if they adopted a Trumpian/Bannonish anti-timid “muzzle velocity” approach to politics, things might be different or the sort of Bevanish boldness that founded the NHS. Instead, they’re carrying the UK’s ming vase towards a second term.
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It constrains his actions. He might argue that’s sensible for a PM rather than a political campaigner.
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Yes, I think the only hope is that some powerful movement outside politics persuades him that the public mood has changed substantially and irrevocably. His hope maybe that things like the youth mobility scheme helps to move public sentiment.
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No. It’s clearly his choice, and his inclination. I’m suggesting that his perception of the current with which he’s swimming is influenced by those advising him. That said, he’s pivoted before. Then again, I fear the level of boldness for this change is beyond him, and knows it.
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It’s the lack of courage to lead the conversation and take on the populists that stands out. I conclude it’s a fear of not being able to overturn a narrative that will continue to be promoted by the majority of the media, with the excuse that it would all be a damaging waste of time.
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Thanks. I wish I were more optimistic. I think what we have is a pessimistic and ultimately false view of the UK promoted by those advising Keir Starmer and, in him, someone who by profession and nature is inclined to swim with the perceived current while making incremental changes. 1/2
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Unsurprising in a fractured political system where the aim is to replicate democracy by unrepresentative minority groups (political parties) competing to present themselves in a good light and all the rest badly.
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On that theme, the EU subject to greater democratic accountability to its member states than national governments are to their electorates. Given, too, how EU votes are the expression of local grievances, mistrust of the EU is a proxy for distrust of national governments.